Philosophy of Religion and the Variety of Religions

Anyone who has or does search for books on the subject of philosophy of religion would quickly assume by the nature of the information that this field is somewhat new. It may seem that the philosophy of religion appeared as a field of study in the middle of the twentieth century and then very rapidly became very popular.

This perception is very deceiving. Philosophers have been reflecting on the religious subjects for as long as philosophy existed. What has been new in the last century was the desire to identify some of the questions that philosophers have been raising about religion for centuries and put them under one umbrella to be able to carefully study them together. This is exactly what modern philosophy of religion is preoccupied with.

Some of the questions that philosophers have been raising for centuries, such as is there God, how could he allow for evil to happen and whether morality depends on God. Other questions change their importance as philosophy of religion evolves and the culture of discussions changes.

Religious beliefs and practices have existed for centuries virtually in all human cultures. Some religions don’t have any supernatural figures in them while others have entities they believe rule everything about the world and human lives. Some other religions suggest that God is synonymous with the totality of the natural order of things in the world. These religions are known as pantheistic.

Other traditions propose that God consists of the body of the whole universe in addition to the invisible divine soul. This view is called panentheism. In addition to all these versions, there are multiple variations of other kinds of religions.

The most familiar religions to people in the Western cultures believe that there are a lot of supernatural beings, including saints and angels, and God is a supernatural being of the highest order.